Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and am delighted she had a productive, informative and enjoyable day in Dundalk, as she has had in many places around the country. To be fair, she gets out to see services in operation on the ground. I have no doubt she spent the whole day in Dundalk, as that is how she operates. She wants to engage with people and get an understanding, which is one way of ensuring that the job is done and people's needs are reflected.

The Minister of State took over at a very difficult time. Although billions were spent on disability in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the money was completely wasted on exorbitant salaries for chief executives of the various NGOs that were providing support services. One executive was on the bones of €500,000, as we all know, although we will not mention any names. While that case hit the headlines, there were numerous other people on significant six-figure sums. One organisation had a chief executive in every county, which was bizarre and totally unacceptable. To be fair to the Minister of State's predecessor, John Moloney, for whom I have huge respect, he tried to deal with it by setting up the value for money audit. That overlapped with Deputy Lynch's period in office and made significant recommendations. While it was not a direct recommendation, the People with Disabilities in Ireland, PWDI, organisation came out of this process. I have mentioned this organisation in the Seanad and it nominated me as a candidate for the House. However, 98% of the €1.5 million that PWDI was getting was going on salaries and expenses and doing very little to assist people with disabilities. That was the backdrop when the downturn in the economy came.

The respite care grant should never have been cut, irrespective of the situation in which we found ourselves.